Garbage Days Revisited #26: Supergrass - "In It For The Money" (1997)

 

"I know you wanna try and get away/But it's the hardest thing you'll ever do..." - Supergrass - Richard III

In It For The Money was arguably the last great Britpop album. Often overshadowed by Supergrass' debut I'm gonna go right out on a limb here and say that to my ears at least it's a far superior effort and probably Gaz Coombes and co's finest hour. As with a lot of people, I'd first become aware of the band via their debut I Should Coco and the "good on its first few listens, more irritating than a dose of scabies afterwards" mega-hit Alright.

To be honest, I still have mixed feelings about I Should Coco now. I know a fair few people who regard it as the point where '90s indie crossed the threshold into being unforgivably commercial never to return and, while I wouldn't go that far, I'll be the first to admit it doesn't sound quite as special as it did when my 16-year-old ears first heard it in 1995. There's some great moments on there like Lose It, Lenny, Strange Ones, She's So Loose, Caught By The Fuzz and the dreamy Sofa Of My Lethargy but there's also a few moments which just seem to get a bit irritating through repeated listening and I think even a year after it had come out, I'd started to sense this when I listened to it.

However, as 1996 turned into 1997, the omens were looking good as the new Supergrass singles showed them growing in confidence and adding a few layers to their sound - Going Out, driven along by Rob Coombes' swirling keys, Danny Goffey's rolling drums and the sweet vocal harmonising was a great comeback and the snotty garage punk of Richard III, by some distance the heaviest thing the band had ever done, was even better, giving them a number 2 hit in the chart and really getting our hopes up.

When In It For The Money surfaced in early 1997, I thought it was great and still do. While Blur and Pulp were plotting a clean break from Britpop and Oasis had sunk into coke-addled self-parody, this showed Supergrass sticking to their Britpop guns but pushing their sound forward just enough to edge away from the "indie Monkees" tag they'd been saddled with. The slow-building menace of the title track was a statement of intent and when Richard III and the nervy Tonight (which for me perfectly summed up the paranoia of going out to nightclubs in Bradford as a 17-year-old when the evening could end with you kissing a girl if you were lucky or getting punched in the head by some psycho who'd taken a random dislike to you if you were unlucky) kept things rolling along nicely. Late In The Day was the token downbeat acoustic lament to drop the pace briefly (although Gaz and co obviously couldn't resist chucking a big bouncy chorus in there just for the hell of it) before the stuttery G-Song kind of served as a sequel to Tonight with its tale of trying to get your bearings and head for home after a heavy night out ("There may be troubles in your mind/Maybe tomorrow it will be fine") before album highlight, the soaring Sun Hits The Sky which was never far off my stereo in that long hot summer after finishing school in '97 effortlessly takes you through to the end of side one.

Going Out kicks off side two before the melancholy acoustics of It's Not Me (which seems like it was written by Gaz about trying to deal with his new found fame but could just as easily be about any teenager trying to make sense of the raging mass of feelings and contradictions that you go through with adolescence - "Deep in the night, the conversation fades away/Losing a grip on all the things I had to say") The supremely funky Cheapskate picks the pace up again before You Can See Me which is the only slight red light here, another "argh, this fame is messing with my head!" diatribe but with an atonal chorus that kind of derails it a bit.

Hollow Little Reign, however, gets things back on track nicely - a wistful summery almost psychedelic effort. I've got fond memories of listening to this walking away from my school the last day that I was there in the summer of 1997 and turning around to take one final look at the place just as the song was fading out. That line "Some day when I care..." just seemed to sum the whole moment up perfectly. Which leaves only the "joke" track Sometimes I Make You Sad to bring things to a close.

Quite honestly, In It For The Money remains one of my favourite albums from that era, nearly flawless and it really points out the way that Britpop could have gone if everyone apart from Supergrass hadn't quickly jumped ship after they spotted the iceberg that was OK Computer on the horizon. Unfortunately, it would also spell the beginning of a downward spiral for the band in terms of quality - 1999's self-titled album had a banging lead-off single in Pumping On Your Stereo but the rest of it was pretty dreadful to be honest, the sound of a band who didn't seem to know where to go with the tunes being B-side quality and the lyrics just sounding confused for the most part. 2002's Life On Other Planets was a little bit better but 2005's Road To Rouen saw the band trying to sound grown-up and, to be honest, making a bit of a hash of it (I mean, with all due respect, Supergrass weren't a band you listened to when you were feeling moody and reflective for the most part!). I completely missed 2008's Diamond Hoo-Ha which the band would break up shortly after releasing before reforming a couple of years ago. Gaz has put together a decent solo career in the meantime which I've yet to hear more than a few tracks from but I've enjoyed what little I've listened to of it.

I think it's safe to say that my relationship with Supergrass' music has been a bit up and down over the years but with In It For The Money they really did nail it and it was one brilliant final blast for the Britpop party before it was forcibly shut down for the night as well as remaining, to my ears, the band's definitive statement. If for whatever reason you never checked this one out at the time then you really should put that right asap. Stick it on, grab a cold glass of your tipple of choice and let that sunshine in.